The Reason Why eBook

Zara was, if anything, whiter than usual when she
came into the library where he was waiting for her
alone. The financier had gone to the City.
She had heavy, bluish shadows under her eyes, and he
saw quite plainly that, the night before, she must
have been weeping bitterly.

A great tenderness came over him. What was this
sorrow of hers? Why might he not comfort her?
He put out both hands and then, as she remained stonily
unresponsive, he dropped them, and only said quietly
that he hoped she was well, and his motor was waiting
outside, and that his mother, Lady Tancred, would
be expecting them.

“I am ready,” said Zara. And they
went.

He told her as they flew along, that he had been riding
in the Park that morning, and had looked up at the
house and wondered which was her window; and then
he asked her if she liked riding, and she said she
had never tried for ten years—­the opportunity
to ride had not been in her life—­but she
used to like it when she was a child.

“I must get you a really well-mannered hack,”
he said joyously. Here was a subject she had
not snubbed him over! “And you will let
me teach you again when we go down to Wrayth, won’t
you?”

But before she could answer they had arrived at the
house in Queen Street.

Michelham, with a subdued beam on his old face, stood
inside the door with his footmen, and Tristram said
gayly,

“Michelham, this is to be her new ladyship;
Countess Shulski”—­and he turned to
Zara. “Michelham is a very old friend of
mine, Zara. We used to do a bit of poaching together,
when I was a boy and came home from Eton.”

Michelham was only a servant and could not know of
her degradation, so Zara allowed herself to smile
and looked wonderfully lovely, as the old man said,

“I am sure I wish your ladyship every happiness,
and his lordship, too; and, if I may say so, with
such a gentleman your ladyship is sure to have it.”

And Tristram chaffed him, and they went upstairs.

Lady Tancred had rigidly refrained from questioning
her daughters, on their return from the dinnerparty;
she had not even seen them until the morning, and
when they had both burst out with descriptions of their
future sister-in-law’s beauty and strangeness
their mother had stopped them.

“Do not tell me anything about her, dear children,”
she had said. “I wish to judge for myself
without prejudice.”

But Lady Coltshurst could not be so easily repressed.
She had called early, on purpose to give her views,
with the ostensible excuse of an inquiry about her
sister-in-law’s health.

“I am afraid you will be rather unfavorably
impressed with Tristram’s choice, when you have
seen her, Jane,” she announced. “I
confess I was. She treated us all as though she
were conferring the honor, not receiving it, and she
is by no means a type that promises domestic tranquillity
for Tristram.”